Morality…what or who do should it comes from?

hickeysatan

hickeysatan

Total Posts: 1

Joined 21-12-2004

Newbie

Total Posts: 1

Joined 21-12-2004

Posted: 23 December 2004 23:49

Dear Mr. Harris and fans,
I agreed with much of the thrust of the first portions of Sam's book. It was at the point where he began to discuss the question of a scientific basis for spirituality and moral positions that I began to have problems. I think the first part of the book was an excellent exposure of the Big 3 religion's bloodthirsty submit-or-die philosophy. But one of the great faults I find with atheism is their regression into the acceptance of almost all of these religions' view of morality: you have almost the same versions of "good" and "evil" as they do. From what source do you gain your "undefiled" wisdom? Why do we continue to let the dead hands of the authors of these filthy books continue to program our views of the world?
There is actually a practical, and not simply philosophical, reason I ask this. If many of you will take a stand in the political and cultural arena, I admire you. But you had better fight to WIN. Don't get out there and fight with the idea that reason alone will cause a victory over the minds and hearts of the millions now enslaved to the vile fantasies and commands of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Most of the masses are not—-I repeat NOT—-thinking like you nor open to the ideas. They do not wish for enlightenment, nor salvation from their religion. You will not win them out of pity for minority rights. You must win by MIGHT, and MIGHT will make you RIGHT alone. History affirms this priciple. You must fight to give the opposition no choice but to accept you and leave the arenas of power and influence. And most important of all, you must be clear in your own moral positions and the authority upon which they rest.
I personally start from the positions that Anton Szandor LaVey laid out in his writings on Satanism. I know that as soon as I mention Satanism, many of you probably cringe at the thought of the word. Ask yourself why it bothers you? As an atheist, why do you have problems with the symbols and philosophical positions of the various Devil figures in mythology? Is it in fact a psychological fallback—-a program—-in your head? Think about the whys and wherefores of all things. I will not tell you much of these positions, because I will not help the undeserving lazies who will not pick up a book and read for themselves. But If after you have examined such works( especially "The Satanic Bible") you wish to really discuss how to form a fighting political movement—-I will be around. I have tons of political experience as a former Marxist organizer and leader, and I think we could learn much from each other. Further more, you will need unorthodox, winner-takes-all strategies and tactics in order to have your ideals see the light of day. This will not be easy, but I challenge you to be the most forthright defenders of the US constitution, of religious liberty, and effective adversaries against the theocratically minded forces in America and the violence that inevitably comes from these" righteous" men and women.
My email is .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) if you wish to correspond privately. I will understand.
Hail Satan!
Alex

Perhaps we all can benefit from asking ourselves the following questions:

What were the views and beliefs of our ancestors and culture prior to their conquest and subversion by the Christians? Is there thuth and wisdom in these beliefs and practices or are they just quaint myths and legends held by the ignorant?

Unless your ancestors came from the middle east, Judaism, Chistianity or Islam are not your ancestral and native faiths.

The question of where others’ (usually “out” groups’) basis for ethics comes from strikes me as a fixation on a favored worldview. We see cooperative behaviors in all social species, yet we wonder what “authority” it’s based upon in humans. Why don’t we ask the same of wildabeasts or sheep? Upon what “authority” is their cooperative behavior based?

I think the notion that biology dictates and influences a great deal of our behavior generally escapes notice (and is offensive to many when they do take note of it) because most of us seem to have a drastically overinflated opinion of how independent our minds are. They’ve proven to be awfully powerful survival tools (so powerful we’re sometimes unable to maintain a grip on them), but they’re not independent of the cosmos.

Our views and feelings and sense of understanding are subject to biological and chemical influences. No matter how much we’d like to think otherwise, our basic drives (for love, sex, food and the potential for violence that rears up in us when we perceive a threat, etc) are less often matters of choice and more often things our biology mandates—that our genes compel their host into.

In other words, we’re nowhere near as in control as we think we are.

Enter fear, and then here comes faith to the rescue for most (it’s easy/prefab security). I prefer Locke’s “social contract” myself, but I think biology/neurochemistry has more to do with it than anything.

Byron

[ Edited: 24 December 2004 03:06 by ]

- Feeding a troll just gives it a platform and amplifies its voice.

—

Reason is to understanding as theory is to music, and critical thinking as mastery of performance.

“We say, ‘Love your brother.’ We don’t say it really, but… well we don’t literally say it. We don’t really, literally mean it. No, we don’t believe it either. But that message should be clear.”—David St. Hubbins/Nigel Tufnel

I am called to be moral by the face of the Other. Levinas recognized the non-transcendent origin of morality and I see no need to move beyond this sphere. This is the Golden Rule that Confucious and Jesus (and everybody else) recommends. We don’t do right because God tells us, we do the best we can because that’s the way we want to be treated and the community of life brings me to the recognition of my own vulnerability, responsibility, and so forth.

As for the might makes right that Alex above espouses, we must admit that our reason is circular and fallible, yes, but it’s all we’ve got. And yes, many are comfortable in their “holy huddles;” nonetheless, fascism is what we are against, on humanitarian grounds—to resort to the same tactics as the war and fear-mongerers is contradictory and evidently indicative of where Satanism leads the mind.

I think that the present Christian “Do onto others as you would have them do onto you”, must be replaced by the more reasonable “Do onto others as they do unto you”. This speaks for itself, and does leave people unable to act when they are abused by others. Love your enemies is another fallacy. How can you love the ones who wound and kill you! Rather , we should hate our enemies. Period. There is my reworked Golden Rule.

[quote author=“hickeysatan”]I think that the present Christian “Do onto others as you would have them do onto you”, must be replaced by the more reasonable “Do onto others as they do unto you”.

I think that whole basic approach is pretty much 180 degree off course. Far superior is the Confucian notion of NOT doing unto others as you would NOT have done unto you (live and let live, more or less).

To DO unto others includes imposing your ideals upon others. Would you pray before classes in school every morning? If so, then according to the Golden Rule you’re okay to “do it unto others.” Do NOT unto others doesn’t encourage such invasive social behaviors.

I think we’d all be much happier if we all learned the “default” of cooperative behavior was to leave each other the hell alone. From there you can see if others want to interract and such, hel each other out with consent or upon request, and there’s no fundamental basis for imposition upon each other.

And just a note: if you feel compelled to do to others as they have done to you, particularly in the negative interactions you’re still being manipulated and you’re still letting those others largely shape your behavior. Doesn’t seem a very appealing way of dealing with the world, but maybe that’s just me.

Byron

- Feeding a troll just gives it a platform and amplifies its voice.

—

Reason is to understanding as theory is to music, and critical thinking as mastery of performance.

“We say, ‘Love your brother.’ We don’t say it really, but… well we don’t literally say it. We don’t really, literally mean it. No, we don’t believe it either. But that message should be clear.”—David St. Hubbins/Nigel Tufnel

We are part of Life. Life has one purpose, and that is to create more structure in the universe for future life than it started with. This purpose applies to all life, whether omnipotent or mortal. If we always consider the resources we use, the lives we live, and the children we bear to be creative endeavors, with this purpose in mind, then we will always be able to answer any moral question with a satisfied mind. We might not like our answer, but we will know that we have done the right thing to add to the future of Life itself.

You don’t have to believe any of this. Just figure it out down to the last iota of what Life does, and you will know it to be true. Even Schrodinger figured it out long ago. People just don’t want to face the fact that their wants aren’t the most important thing, and that their emotions rule their lives more than any ‘morality’ they try to invent and force down someone else’s throat.
auntiegrav.blogspot.com

Satanism? The Gnostics thought of Yahweh as a devil. To follow that road is to be a believer in the absurd. We are the indwelling place of light and dark, not some external shadow.

Jung stated that (and forgive a 19th Century Swede’s limitations) women tended toward completion and men tended toward perfection. Perfection cannot contain completion—too messy, sloppy and unwieldy. But completion can and does contain perfection, ergo the female ideal of wholeness trumps all. Morality? First, do no harm. Proceed from there. Yet all life consumes all life, so some “harm” is unavoidable, even in the consuming of a carrot.

All games and religions are the same: abide by the rules and you can play. Question the game and all the fun goes out of it…

[quote author=“Wotansson”]Perhaps we all can benefit from asking ourselves the following questions:

What were the views and beliefs of our ancestors and culture prior to their conquest and subversion by the Christians? Is there thuth and wisdom in these beliefs and practices or are they just quaint myths and legends held by the ignorant?

Unless your ancestors came from the middle east, Judaism, Chistianity or Islam are not your ancestral and native faiths.

The views and beliefs of the northeeastern tribal european ancestors involves a belief system of a set of gods governing existence, including Tewes, Wotan, Thor, and Frie (from which our days of the week come) - they are somewhat comparable to the supposed mythical “gods” of rome and greece, Zeus/Jupiter, Venus, Mars, Mercury… (I forget all the corresponding greek and roman names, but they are easily found by web searching) - compare with a few of the french days of the week: lundi (moonday), mardi (mars day), mercredi (mercury day), jeudi (play day or, maybe jupiter day)

the viking belief in valhalla could have motivated them to raid and conquer normandy, portugal, kiev, malta, etc. - that is history - it was not pleasant for the “non-believers” at the time - same as the unpleasantness of the mongol invasions - and the mongols seem to have embraced islam in some of their territories

these are the “prior beliefs” of peoples on this planet before our present apparent deadlock between at least christianity and islam - however, we cannot ignore hindu beliefs as a potential major player (and maybe several others, such as judaism? or jainsim?) - I obtained some of this information from the DK Illustrated Dictionary of Religions, 1999

[quote author=“fjlomnix”]
the major problem with ANY religion is EXTREMISM

Extremism is only a symptom of ANY action based on blind faith. It starts with blind faith in rituals and figureheads, and ends with blind faith in all commands of any leader. Not confined to religion, either. Patriotism, nationalism, pretty much any “-ism” is the same thing. Doing things because either “we always did it this way”, or “because da Boss said so”. The latter works best when enhanced with fear, as in ‘God-fearing’, or under threat of an ‘enemy’.

We need some blind faith in order to get things done in a timely manner, but this is where law and morality comes in, to (hopefully) educate and protect against people purposely taking unfair advantage of our needs.

Who sets up the level of morality can be answered by my previous post. Net creativity is what will determine long term (millenia) benefits and sustainability. Laws and systems which aren’t enforceable or sustainable are as unnecessary as those which are unjust in taking away individual rights. Why have a speed limit if it is only going to be used as a marketing tool to ensure continuous revenue rather than to limit speeds?
Why have religion teach morality when the evidence suggests that religious people are amoral in the long term?

I think that the present Christian “Do onto others as you would have them do onto you”, must be replaced by the more reasonable “Do onto others as they do unto you”. This speaks for itself, and does leave people unable to act when they are abused by others. Love your enemies is another fallacy. How can you love the ones who wound and kill you! Rather , we should hate our enemies. Period. There is my reworked Golden Rule.

You must have an interesting life, my friend. I lived part of my life doing my very best to inculcate your philosophy, and I must admit that I didn’t have much fun. Well, sometimes I did, but during those times, the folks around me didn’t! These days, I do the best I can to live by the Confusian version mentioned above, and am having a much better time of it, and so are my fellow travellers.

I am presently reading “The Science of Good and Evil” by Michael Shermer. He presents an evolutionary explaination for morality that makes a lot of sense to me. The idea that morality is a product of our religious heritage is absurd, as it would have been impossible for even simple hunter-gatherer societies to form and flurish without some kind of common moral code. Some must hunt and some must gather, some are sick, some are too old and some are too young, but all must share in whatever there is.

Today, the most important thing to me is serenity, and I will do whatever I have to to obtain it. I try to remember who I am, what I am, and most of all, try to stay “right sized.” A few years ago it hit me that it was more important to be happy than to be right. That made a major difference. I don’t need any religion, thank you very much, to tell me how to live. I think that by the time someone reaches my age, they should work something out for themselves.

I personally start from the positions that Anton Szandor LaVey laid out in his writings on Satanism. I know that as soon as I mention Satanism, many of you probably cringe at the thought of the word. Ask yourself why it bothers you? As an atheist, why do you have problems with the symbols and philosophical positions of the various Devil figures in mythology? Is it in fact a psychological fallback—-a program—-in your head? Think about the whys and wherefores of all things.

I am struggling with your logic here. If the atheist has a problem believing in any god, why would he not have a problem believing in satanic figures? I don’t see this as programming - just common sense. The belief and reliance of gods and their responsibility for the events in the lives of men does not promote a quest for the whys and wherefores - it puts an end to any such quest.